No Record
by lazzyk
Summary: One year after Sherlock returns to 221B after the fall, things finally boil over after Sherlock applies too much insensitive pressure on a sensitive subject that John doesn't want to talk about just yet. John finally has a breakdown, and Sherlock must ask for forgiveness. Slight/implied future Johnlock. (my first fanfiction ever... so nervous)


He paced back and forth across the room, his spidery hands buried in the inky mess that sat on top of his head instead of the neck of his violin. When he was like this, I wondered if he was manually trying to corral his thoughts in that brilliant mind that was so good for so many, but was often the source of his own frustration.

"Sherlock -"

"You recited something to me at the morgue today," he snapped, stopping in his tracks and training his eyes on me. It was terrifying to be under the microscope of Sherlock Holmes. No amount of time in Afghanistan could prepare me for the one-man war that was the world's only consulting detective. "Why?"

"Because sometimes I have to verbally remind myself not to kill you." I replied flatly, my stomach coiling low and heavy as I braced myself for the outpour of cruelty that often accompanied these types of moods of his.

"Why?" he pressed, taking a step forward. It was just enough that I found myself standing instantly, my muscles tense and ready as a side effect of my adrenal glands pumping hard enough that I could literally feel them working from the anticipation and anxiety of what Sherlock might say next. I had confessed things to him out of shock and anger and blind relief the night he showed up on the doorstep of 221B, after I went on for _three years_ thinking he was _dead_.

"We're not doing this tonight, Sherlock." I cautioned, my expression making my point very clear. I wasn't hiding anything or trying to be clever; I simply did not want to talk about this.

"You said, '_Love does not keep record of wrongs._' Why?" he took a giant step closer, and I set my jaw as I curled my fist. As we both (including Lestrade after it almost happened in front of everyone at a crime scene) had experienced, I was not above hitting Sherlock in the face when he was like this.

"We. Are. Not. Doing. This. Tonight." my words felt like steel wool in my mouth as my tongue tried to slip around and my lips struggled to form correct movements. It didn't take a genius to figure out where he was going with this. We hadn't spoken about that first night - that horrible, _horrible_ first night when my heart finally broke into a thousand tiny pieces, because it was just _not possible_, apologies were running out of my mouth faster than light after I feebly attempted to deck him, and then quiet declarations were made in the early morning when I buried my face in his chest because it was all _too much_, because he couldn't be real - even though it happened over a year ago.

Sherlock's lips twisted into a sick, yet unsatisfied smile. My heart hammered. "You love me, right?" he smirked, applying a mocking tone to the pressure of his gaze. I should have never told him those secrets that night he returned after the fall. "That's why you don't leave."

"It's never been an issue; it's never interfered with being your doctor, your flatmate, your friend, or your assistant, so it doesn't matter. Delete it." I hissed, giving him a proper warning step toward him, hoping he would take a step back. He didn't.

"Can't. Your wounds are just exquisitely expressive." he sneered. The familiar snapping sensation rippled through my torso, and my fist was flying out of its own accord on a path directly for Sherlock's mouth. But Sherlock caught it with one of his graceful musician hands before it made contact, and pulled me in close so we were chest to chest, toe to toe, and nearly eye to eye.

"I am not in love with you." he said emotionlessly, his pitch a tone lower than it naturally was.

I hardened my eyes and let his familiar coldness penetrate me until I was overflowing with it. My chest was splitting open again, ice water filling my lungs and making it difficult to breathe, liquid nitrogen running in my veins and numbing my extremities so they felt heavy and limp, my brain obtaining frostbite along the edges and shooting a dose of cold fusion to my heart, where it hardened for the millionth time. And none of it was a new feeling to me whatsoever.

"Good, cause if you were, I would tell you're an idiot." I cut back, a smug grin across my face out of pure survival as his silver eyes widened just a fraction. He had retreated into his mind just enough that he didn't notice or stop my other fist from colliding with his jaw until it happened. Sherlock gazed at me, angry, calculating, and something else entirely. "Besides," I scoffed, flexing my fingers. "Who could ever love the world's only consulting detective?" I yanked away my hand he was still holding and stormed up the stairs to my bedroom and slammed the door shut.

As soon as the sound had faded, I collapsed onto my bed, screaming into a pillow as I cried and cried and cried, because he was so perfect at being hurtful. Because I could only go on being his doctor _and_ flatmate _and_ assistant for so long before I became attached on a personal level that I forced myself to swallow every moment of every day. In some respects, it was easier when I thought he was dead. The pain was all there, but it was a numbing one that eventually slithered into every aspect of every day life until it was virtually unnoticed. Until you didn't know how to live without it, because feeling something _else_ was just too much. But seeing him every day was worse; it was having a new cut every hour and pouring salt in it. Having him vocalize his disdain for my feelings was worse than a thousand rooftops.

And so I let sobs wrack through my worn out soul, not caring who heard or didn't hear, because it didn't make a difference anymore. It needed to escape the anger and emptiness of seeing him jump after he says things on one end of the phone that I could never repeat to anyone else; the joy and confusion of his return; the lead weight that I swallowed every day so my personal feelings wouldn't ever become a problem; the fresh sting his black moods left me with; and the PTSD nightmares from Afghanistan that welcomed all of these vices as old friends.

I didn't hear the door open, but I did hear the voice that softly played above me. "You could." he breathed gently, my bed dipping under the newfound weight. I screamed incoherently at him, warning '_that I still had my hand gun and I still knew how to use it and I would shoot his fucking brains out_' and '_just because I'm a doctor doesn't mean I didn't kill people_'.

Sherlock wound his gangly limbs around me until I was surrounded by him; his scent was everywhere, reminding me he was alive; his body was around mine, reminding me he was alive; his face was pressed into the nape of my neck, steadily breathing, reminding me that I was finally breaking, and it was okay. Just this once was okay.

Eventually my sounds escaped me, leaving an exhausted shell behind with puffy eyes and a sore throat. I settled against Sherlock further, a small whimper or sob occasionally slipping out of me - I wasn't sure where they came from or how, but they would, and Sherlock would tighten his grip around me and nuzzle my neck until it subsided.

"You could." he repeated once I was truly and completely (emotionally) hollowed out, lying bonelessly against him. I recognized the significance in his diction immediately, and let out a small sigh, squeezing my eyes shut for just a moment, just a quick moment. '_You could_.' The same words I told him over the phone when I looked up to see him standing on that damn rooftop, saying that he was a fake, that, "_Nobody could be that clever_."

"_You could_." was what I told him, my voice steady even though my hands were shaking. And all he said, with audible tears staining his face, was, "_Goodbye, John_."

But we're not at St. Bartholomew's, it is not that day. I'm not the only giving the answer, I was the one who asked the question. This day is today, and I have tasted what it feels like to swap places with Sherlock Holmes when it came to our relationship, to be the one breaking instead of keeping it together.

Because Sherlock _did_ need someone to love him. He needed someone who could withstand being left at crime scenes after his brilliant mind went off on a tangent. He needed someone who would sigh and help him clean up broken shards of beakers after an experiment went wrong, no questions asked. He needed someone steady and normal, but just crazy enough to follow blindly, danger be damned. He needed someone to tell him he was fantastic, brilliant, and extraordinary, and more than that, sincerely mean it. He needed someone to remind him when he was being not good, to eat, to sleep.

The beautiful irony in that was that everyone needed someone to love them unconditionally. And that was the tiny thread that connected the great and omnipotent _Sherlock Holmes_ to the rest of humanity, including the criminals he sought after. Sherlock Holmes was not above the basic need of love, even if he had no idea how to reciprocate it.

He had no idea how to love, but he knew how to take it. I had no idea how to take love, but knew how to love those I deemed worthy. Maybe we were thrown together because of a bullet that lodged itself in my shoulder, maybe because of chance, maybe because of Mike Stamford's inability to butt out. But I couldn't help thinking that regardless of how we were thrown together, Sherlock and I were made to fit each other at just the right moment.

"Forgive me, John." he breathed, pressing his face deeper into my nape as if he tried to force his words through my skin.

My lips had no desire to move, my tongue had no will to flick, my vocal chords were paralyzed. I watched distantly as his fingers knotted and unknotted in the fabric of my jumper, waiting for me to say something. Neither of us moved or dared to change positions in fear that something very delicate would snap and we would both go tumbling further and further down until neither of us knew how to stop.

Today was not the day for that, but it would happen eventually. And when it did, I was fully prepared to fall until I saw the bottom with Sherlock, and whatever happened to us at the bottom was nobody's damn business. And whenever we got back to the top again, our heads on straight, he would look at me and say, "_I do not love you_.", and I would tell him, "_Good, cause if you did, I would tell you not to_." even though we both would have Moriarty's voice in our heads, whispering, "_But we both know that's not quite true…_"

And all of this would happen, and I would never hold it against him, because right now he was curled against me, asking for forgiveness. And I would give it, because love keeps no record of wrongs.

**So, uh, yeah. That's it. First fanfic one-shot. Actually, my first fanfiction period, so I hope I didn't totally disgrace it, cause so many of you are just phenomenal writers (especially when it comes to Sherlock and Johnlock). It's taken me several months to get up the nerve to actually post something. So if you actually read it, bless you, thank you a million. Sorry if it's complete shit.**


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